Using two different brands/speeds of RAM

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#1 Game-Guru
Member since 2003 • 610 Posts
I have two 512 sticks of 400 mhz Corsair DDR RAM. Now, a friend of mine dissassembled his computer and gave me a free 512 stick of some random brand of 333 mhz RAM. Now, if I put this in my computer, will it screw up performance, or cause performance "oddities", or is the philosophy "the more RAM the better, whatever it is"? Thanks.
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Teuf_

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#2 Teuf_
Member since 2004 • 30805 Posts
I would just keep that other RAM out of your computer.  While they're certainly not guaranteed, compatibility issues are much more likely when you start mixing RAM types and brands.  Using that DDR 333 will also cause your computer to run all of your RAM at the same lower speed.  
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KSlater85

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#3 KSlater85
Member since 2003 • 19738 Posts
Well.. if you have two sticks now they will run is Dual Channel mode... If you put a third in (333 MHZ) it will slow the ram down to 333 and also take it out of dual channel mode... So I would not recommend it... Now if you had two 333 MHz sticks it might be worth the ram slow down for the larger capacity but to drop speed and dual channel is not worth it.